Starting off with Rock Island Falls, bottom of Sieve City, and then down the river at 7,000 cfs we opened up the testing of the new 2010 Villain!    After a great start, we headed to the Tellico during the heavy rains/snow while actually planning on going to NC to meet with Wayner to test together on the Cascades.   we got skunked there as the snow had the Nanty gorge closed, as well as 411 and we had the RV and the Dragon’s Tail would have been enough of a challenge, but even after making that 40 mile stretch in the RV and snow we would have been unable to reach the put-in.   we stayed on our side of the Smokies and hit up the Tellico at 250 cfs for run one, followed by 500 cfs for run two, and 1500 cfs for run three, and 2000 cfs for run 4!       Nick and I “Ran” shuttle on run one as Clay forgot his keys for his truck that was at the takeout.    then on Run two we all got to go, and run three Clay drove shuttle as “payment” for our running it, and then on run 4 i drove to allow Clay to do one more in the villain.  

We stayed at Tellico Plains and ate at “Nut-n-Fancy” a local fun spot.   we played “Settler’s of Catan” and I worked after that to finish up the night at 1am.   this morning we got up, ate at Huddle House, and drove to the Bear in Trenton, GA.   We got here and most people were done for the day as the creek dropped down to 9″ a lower level making many of the rapids harder and mankier, but still super fun.    We got a shuttle up so that Clay’s truck and my Rv would be at the takeout in case there was time for run #2.    We took our time, with Dane or Clay leading, showing me the way as i haven’t had many runs on this one.   My first time being in 1990 in my Crossfire, and my second time in a Mutant, and my third time I pulled a broken boat out of a quiver in the factory not sure why it hadn’t been paddled in 4 years, but found out well below Edward Scissor Hands and hiked out for 2.5 hours.     my fourth time was today, and my first full run down (oh yea, i had one more in there but we put on (Dane, Nick, and i at 5pm and didn’t make out out before dark and hiked the last few miles at Armegeddon) so my 5 time, but only my 3rd time making it to the takeout.   

Great run, loving the villain and i have a new favorite boat for creeking. Sweet!!!!

we got to the put in for run two at 3:20pm central (dark is 4:30) and clay, Nick, and Dane rallied it on the second run in 45 minutes, while I drove shuttle and wrote this, got the Budweiser, coffee, snacks, and heat going.      The girls and KC are meeting us in town for dinner at Lupis Pizza and spending the night in the RV.  We’ll hit up Suck Creek in the morning for Day 4 of villain Testing, and then back to Rock Island where it is currently running at 10,000 cfs for some more falls/sieve City action on Monday!   How lucky are we to get a ton of rain the day we have the Villain ready!!!!   Awesome!   Boy this testing stuff is hard work, but somebody has to do it!       i think we should test it another day, and then another, at least until their isn’t anything to test it on…. good idea…

Christmas came early again.   I remember getting the 2007 All-Star on Christmas morning, that was cool.   we have the Villain on December 17th, one week before christmas.  Sweet!

OK- time to get some pizza! 

EJ

enjoy the photos- we didn’t take many as we were having too much fun paddling!  We’ll have helmet cam video from Bear and Tellico, but no Bear photos, no camera today..